Emancipation milestone: Quarter of professors at Dutch universities female

A quarter of professors at Dutch universities are women, according to the Monitor Female Professors 2021. The Open University has the most female professors. TU Delft is at the bottom of the list.

The National Network of Women Professors called it a milestone. Never before has the proportion of female professors been so high. Last year, it was 24.2 percent. From a European perspective, the Netherlands is still in the lower regions.

The network expects that it will take until 2040 before an equal number of male and female professors are working at the universities. More than half of university graduates are women, according to the organization. This concerns 44.4 percent of Ph.D. students and 43.5 percent and 30.4 percent of assistant professors and associate professors, respectively.

According to the network, there are significantly more men over 60 than women among professors. "In the coming years, there will be a large outflow of men who retire, so there is room for appointing women in these positions," according to the network, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. When the organization was founded, the percentage of female professors was only 6.5 percent.

"It is a good thing that the increase in female scientists is continuing and that the number of female professors has reached 1 in 4 for the first time," responded Pieter Duisenberg of the Universities of the Netherlands (VSNU). "In the coming years, we will continue to work for a gender balance in the academic community and aim for 1 in 3 by 2025."